By Harry Awurumibe With Nigeria sandwiched between heavy weights Brazil, England and Korea DPR in Group C of this summer’s Federation of International Football Association (FIFA) flagship U-17 Women’s World Cup final slated for Jordan, football stakeholders have called for early camping and quality international friendly matches for the Flamingoes if they hope to better their best performance the last time out which was a quarter-final finish in Costa Rica in 2014.
Interestingly, Coach Bala Nikyu who handled the team two years ago is still on the saddle and is expected to go one more step better than in Costa Rica where his team was bundled out in the quarter-final stage.
But the odds are against Nikyu and his wards as they will discover rather late that all their Group C opponents- Brazil, England and Korea DPR are tough opposition as they are have a culture of long term planning and preparations which put them one step ahead of Nigeria when hostilities start in Jordan.
Nigeria will tackle Brazil on October 1at King Abdullah Stadium where they will also take on England on October 4 before meeting Korea DPR on October 8 at Amman international stadium to round off the group matches.
The Flamingoes are condemned to get fair results from the first two games to have a chance of qualifying from the tough group, a situation which looks like a repeat of Flamingoes lot in New Zealand in 2008 where they lost 0-1 to England, drew 2-2 with Brazil yet failed to qualify from the Group of Death.
However, former Chairman of defunct Flying Angels of Lagos, Mr. John Obijiaku has posited that the success or failure of the Flamingoes depends heavily on the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF).
According to him, “the NFF has the trump card for the success or failure of the Flamingoes because if they want Coach Bala Nikyu and his players to do well in Jordan, they have to give them every support in terms of ensuring that the team is given adequate preparations”.
The women’s football administrator who was also the Team Manager of Princess Jegede Babes of Lagos opined that Nigeria will do well if the authorities also arranges quality international friendly matches like they do for the all the male national teams like the Golden Eaglets, Flying Eagles, U-23 Team and Super Eagles before every international competitions.
This view was shared by Alhaji Yekini Alao, a Lagos shop owner who told Prompt News that he is a fan of Super Falcons of Nigeria and by extension all the women’s teams. He wants the NFF to give the women’s teams the same attention they give to the male teams.
Said he, I don’t know why the NFF will not arrange friendly matches for our female teams. I want them to always prepare the teams like they do to male teams before major competitions:.
Another women’s football enthusiast, Prince Charles Azubuike, the proprietor of Charliz Fast Food/ Lounge at Imo Poly, Owerri, believes that with adequate preparations, the Flamingoes will better their best performance two years ago even as he urged the NFF to consider setting up camp for the team in Europe or Jordan’s neighboring countries of Turkey, Qatar, Isreal and United Arab Emirate (UAE)
The Flamingoes will be appearing in their successive four editions of the competition after making a debut in the maiden edition in New Zealand in 2008 and have reached the quarter-final stage in the last three editions in Trinidad & Tobago 2010; Azerbaijan 2012 and Costa Rica 2014.
